presents The Secret History of Wilton Park
JJosias Du Pre, a former Governor of Madras in India, built a grand house on the Wilton Park Estate
outside Beaconsfield in 1779. It was known as the ‘White House’ because of its plastered exterior. It
remained in the Du Pre family, largely unchanged, for over 160 years.
WW2 changed Wilton Park’s history forever.
Leased to the War Office in 1939, it became a
top secret interrogation centre for Nazi prisoners
of war and the most important POW site in the
country. The activities that took place there were
hidden at the time and are still little known today.
Secret interrogation and re-education
During the war, enemy prisoners of war were
interrogated at Wilton Park before being sent on
to their permanent camps. By bugging their cells,
the British obtained valuable information from
their monitored conversations. They also gathered
intelligence from British POWs in Axis hands and
Photo: Dr Helen Fry The M Room: Secret Listeners who bugged the Nazis
sent help to enable them to escape.
After the war, the site was used as a re-education centre for German POWs. The Foreign Office ran ‘denazification’ programmes to encourage independent thought and promote a democratic way of life, with
the aim of re-establishing democracy in Germany.
In 1951, the Beaconsfield site was occupied by the Army Defence School of Languages and the courses
for democracy were moved to Wiston House, near Steyning in Sussex, where they retain the Wilton Park
name.
Preserving the Wilton Park story
The house itself was demolished in 1968 and the Army left in
2014. The 100-acre site was sold by the Ministry of Defence
to developers Inland Homes, who have submitted plans to
build 350 new houses there.
The Beaconsfield Society believes it is important to raise
awareness of Wilton Park’s secret history and find ways of
commemorating it, before this part of our town’s heritage
is lost to view. We hope you will join us for what will be a
fascinating talk on the 21st April to begin this process.
mosaic of Wilton Park on the wall of the Officers’ mess.
Sarah Paterson
Kari Dorme
The Secret History of Wilton Park in WW2
A talk by Sarah Paterson, Senior Librarian at the Imperial War Museum
Tuesday 21st April at 7.30 pm
at St. Teresa’s Parish Centre, Warwick Road, Beaconsfield HP9 2PL
Tickets £10 (refreshments included) on sale at the Beaconsfield Library. Also available
online from www.beaconsfieldsociety.org.uk or call 01494 675923.
email: [email protected] | www.hiyabucks.com
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